a)     Ed Wilson of Clewer and Dedworth West ward will ask the following question of Councillor Johnson, Leader of the Council:

Will the Leader of the Council advise what is the Council’s vision for Furze Platt?

b)     Ed Wilson of Clewer and Dedworth West ward will ask the following question of Councillor Hilton, Lead Member for Finance and Ascot:

The CIFPA Report under the Clewer & Dedworth Improvement Plan concludes that members were able to circumvent the Council’s approved policies without appropriate challenge from officers.  It also states that the plan was included after consideration at the Members Budget Steering Committee.  Can he advise what challenge was made by officers at this meeting?

(The Council will set aside a period of 30 minutes to deal with public questions, which may be extended at the discretion of the Mayor in exceptional circumstances. The Member who provides the initial response will do so in writing. The written response will be published as a supplement to the agenda by 5pm one working day before the meeting. The questioner shall be allowed up to one minute to put a supplementary question at the meeting. The supplementary question must arise directly out of the reply provided and shall not have the effect of introducing any new subject matter. A Member responding to a supplementary question will have two minutes to respond).

a)    Ed Wilson of Clewer and Dedworth West ward asked the following question of Councillor Johnson, Leader of the Council:

Will the Leader of the Council advise what is the Council’s vision for Furze Platt?

Written response: The emerging Borough Local Plan sets out the Council’s vision for future development within the whole Royal Borough.  Within the emerging Borough Local Plan there are specific policies relating to areas where it is proposed to focus future growth. Furze Platt is not proposed to be an area of significant growth or change and so there are no specific policies relating to it.  The future vision for the area is for it to be part of a thriving Royal Borough where people can live and work in a safe, healthy and sustainable environment.

By way of a supplementary question, Mr Wilson thanked Councillor Johnson for confirming the council had a generic, rather than a specific, vision for Furze Platt and asked if he would outline how this vision would become a reality for residents?

Councillor Johnson responded that this would happen through the continued implementation of a range of policies that sought to secure and embed economic recovery from COVID-19, to ensure the most vulnerable in society were protected and to ensure future opportunities, in particular economic opportunity. The broader planning policy framework was also key. It would also be important that the administration continued to attract and retain businesses in the borough, including through promotion of inward investment opportunities and attracting economic growth. The ambitions for Furze Platt would be realised in the short term by the ward councillors playing a constructive part in helping the administration to deliver its policies, for which it had a mandate.

b)   Ed Wilson of Clewer and Dedworth West ward asked the following question of Councillor Hilton, Lead Member for Finance and Ascot:

The CIFPA Report under the Clewer & Dedworth Improvement Plan concludes that members were able to circumvent the Council’s approved policies without appropriate challenge from officers.  It also states that the plan was included after consideration at the Members Budget Steering Committee.  Can he advise what challenge was made by officers at this meeting?

Written response: There is no record of discussion of the Clewer and Dedworth Neighbourhood proposals in Budget Steering Group minutes and therefore no record of any challenge by officers.  

However, there is no doubt that the Dedworth and Clewer Neighbourhood scheme for roads and footway improvements did not go through the formal prioritisation process which ensures investment in roads maintenance is made based on greatest need. The Clewer and Dedworth proposals circumvented that process to the benefit of one ward. Not only did the roads maintenance avoid the prioritisation process but other schemes relating to works in parks and at a day centre were added to the scheme. It may be that these were approved by the then Managing Director but as detailed in the CIPFA report, the Monitoring Officer agreed that virements from the PAVE scheme, to pay for the parks and works to the Day Centre, were beyond the authority of the Managing Director and ultra vires

By way of a supplementary question, Mr Wilson commented that the report stated that Members were able to circumvent the council’s approved policies without appropriate challenge from officers.  Councillor Hilton had confirmed that this did not happen at Budget Steering Group, nor at the Cabinet meeting in May 2018 as Members discussed a paper that said officers had assessed the improvements on a technical basis to form a revised programme that benefitted three wards. If this did not happen at Budget Steering Committee or at Cabinet, Mr Wilson asked where did the officer challenge take place? Mr Wilson asked Councillor Hilton to write to him with the details.

Councillor Hilton responded that the key individuals involved no longer worked for the council so it was not possible to ask them. He had asked the finance team to look through the minutes of the Budget Steering Group and there was no record there. Councillor Hilton explained that he was personally very involved in the CIPFA work and made comments that led to some other individual lines of enquiry. Not every statement in the report that was critical was pinpoint accurate. He had not challenged this because, in the round, the report correctly highlighted the cultural and financial governance issues. These had been recognised and a monitored programme had been established to resolve them. Councillor Hilton agreed to write to Mr Wilson although he commented that he did not know what the content would be. The council was happy to receive questions but however many times Mr Wilson asked, the answer would not change, in that the Clewer and Dedworth scheme breached the council’s governance rules.